The world's largest agricultural meteorological observation network has been established.

Headline: The World’s Largest Agricultural Meteorological Observation Network Is Now in Place

On the 6th, a reporter learned from the China Meteorological Administration that our country has built the world’s largest agricultural meteorological observation network. This network, constructed based on an “air-space-ground” integrated monitoring model, is becoming a “scientific and technological shield” for safeguarding national food security and a “digital engine” driving the development of smart agriculture.

According to the latest data from the China Meteorological Administration, the meteorological sector has currently built a modern agricultural meteorological observation system that includes 642 manual observation stations, 738 automatic observation stations, 15 characteristic service centers, and 91 experimental stations. The operational framework of “manual and automatic complement each other, and observation and experiments work in coordination” not only effectively fills weak links in core agricultural areas, but also expands its view to hundreds of kilometers of high altitude through a satellite remote sensing monitoring system.

In major grain-producing areas such as Henan, by integrating 48 phenological observation systems with Fengyun satellites and drone data, agricultural authorities can produce monitoring products with resolutions as high as 10 meters, ensuring that every jointing stage of winter wheat and every inch of soil moisture can be “seen, distinguished, and judged accurately.”

“The biggest feature of this observation network is that it combines ‘smart’ and ‘accurate.’” Wu Dongli, deputy director of the system division at the Meteorological Observation Center of the China Meteorological Administration, said. With support from cutting-edge technologies such as AI, laser, and hyperspectral technology, China has become the only country in the world that has a complete set of automatic observation data for crop development stages, with core data accuracy reaching above 90%.

This “smartness” is being transformed into productive capacity to combat natural disasters. In the prevention and control of crop pests and diseases, meteorological departments have innovated and developed a pest and bird monitoring and identification technology based on multi-band radar, which can finely identify and track the migration and flight paths of harmful pests, providing precise decision support for agriculture and rural affairs departments. In crop monitoring, by fusing hyperspectral and multimodal data, researchers can quantitatively monitor crop chlorophyll content and physiological-level changes, achieving a shift from “living by weather” to “understanding weather and farming accordingly.”

The effectiveness of this observation network has been vividly demonstrated in this year’s spring plowing production and improvements in crop yields per unit area.

In the southern rice major-producing areas, the high-standard farmland meteorological observation stations newly built by the Hunan meteorological department together with the agriculture and rural affairs departments have played a “outpost” role. By monitoring in real time the temperature and humidity inside the seedling-raising sheds, the system automatically pushes alerts for risks such as high-temperature burn and seedling scorching, guiding farmers to ventilate promptly.

Observation data are used not only for early warnings, but also to standardize agricultural production standards. In response to the increasingly widespread plant protection unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flight operations, meteorological departments, taking the lead, have formulated the industry standard 《Meteorological Classification for Plant Protection UAV Flight Operations》. In Jiangsu, a smart agriculture meteorological service system releases forecasts for flight suitability levels in real time, helping large-scale growers precisely plan their operating windows—cutting the disease and pest prevention cycle by 30% and saving a considerable amount of pesticide costs each year.

Experts say that from the “agricultural situation telegrams” transmitted by the Fengyun meteorological satellite constellation, to minute-level disaster alerts from the fields, through these precise data chains, this agricultural meteorological observation network is embedding “cloud” technology deeply into “field ridges,” providing solid meteorological support for keeping the “Chinese grain bowl” firmly filled. (Fu Lili)

Headline: The World’s Largest Agricultural Meteorological Observation Network Is Now in Place Source: Science and Technology Daily

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